Somewhere out there is a cosmic force that absolutely will not allow me to choose the correct checkout line…ever. Something all–powerful and supernatural finds its way in front of me and directs me to the line full of people with un–priced items, returns, multiple transactions, and lists of special orders for entire offices. It might be karma or just plain bad luck, but whatever it is, I wish it would let me just get through a drive–thru a little quicker once in a while.

I’m a patient guy. If I weren’t, I would need to be heavily sedated and fitted for my own personal straight jacket by now. If the lines didn’t get me to that point, my three kids would have. I feel like I spend a good portion of my life saying, “Come on, let’s go” and “Are we ready yet?” I live with a woman and two little girls that believe “late” is a relative term and time exists only for sprinters and racehorses.

My son is just too young to understand that getting ready means putting on his pants and shoes and does not necessarily involve getting out his Bat–mobile and Buzz Lightyear action figure. Patience is trying to dress a three–year–old for church when all he wants to do is save Gotham City and rescue the universe.

That said, I don’t need any cosmic force teaching me patience is a virtue when I’m just trying to pick up some bread and milk. Yet I always get behind the guy in the checkout line that has to experiment with each item until he’s found just the right combination of pickles, Vienna sausages, and Milwaukee’s Best that will allow him to use his ten–dollar bill.

Contrary to popular opinion, I don’t get mad at the grocery line negotiator or office gopher with seventeen special orders. I admire such people. It takes guts to look at a line of potentially disgruntled and impatient fellow customers tapping their toes and sighing intermittently and say, “Hey, I don’t give a darn if Desperate Housewives is coming on in five minutes, I’m using these coupons whether they expired last January or not!” That’s a person who gets the most out of life whether it creates an angry mob or not. I just get frustrated the law of averages hasn’t allowed me the opportunity to miss these people on occasion.

Of course, this cosmic force has a sense of humor and a taste for irony too. In the event I do manage to sprint to the front of a line narrowly escaping the woman on a cell phone that can’t get her debit card to work and just ran out of checks, it seems suddenly all the items in my buggy including the gigantic box of feminine hygiene products require a “price– check.” Better yet, I get to the front of the line to find I’ve forgotten my pin number and the teller has to leave the counter to find some top–secret computer in Idaho to process my transaction. Meanwhile the toe tappers and deep breathers are building–up behind me at a furious pace wondering how they got stuck behind this guy.

Given the choice, I’d rather be the deep breathing toe tapper than the person bringing the line to a screeching halt any day of the week.